Bush jr. is responsible for 2 major wars though, those cost quite a lot of money.

I know the difference, but somehow mixed them up in my mind. Too hot in here to think clearly.
Still a bad fuckup on my part, thanks for correcting.

What I actually wanted to say if the following: the debt level is just as important as the deficit itself. As long as the debt level keeps rising and as long as virtually every president is running a deficit in virtually every year, the debt situation keeps getting worse and worse; and some reductions in the deficit from 'skyhigh' down to 'very high' are pretty meaningless for the long-term debt problem.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Aug 5 2018 02:14pm

/e Here, knock yourselves out...

https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/

This post was edited by Ghot on Aug 5 2018 02:35pm

The debt level won't go down without first reducing the deficit though, and slashing government spending by 10%+ in a year or two is economic suicide, so the only real option is to incrementally reduce the deficit until government interest payments are greater than borrowing costs.

That is what Obama was on his way to doing. Whether the fiscal stimulus was required or the deficit reduction happened fast enough is up for debate and we can have a reasonable discussion about that, but let's not pretend that the differences between Bush, Obama and Trump's deficit spending and its effect on the overall debt are purely inconsequential.

This post was edited by dro94 on Aug 5 2018 02:22pm

All good and true, but it's still an invalid argument to pretend like Obama "reducing the deficit to a level of $450billion per year during an economic boom" would come anywhere close to "getting the debt problem under control".

I'm very critical of Trump's expanded government spending btw, he really shouldnt be running up the deficit in the current economic situation.

The debt realistically isn't a problem in the US. Having low debt would be a bad thing in the current US economy from what I've read.

I didn't post that though.

absolutely, they cost money

but i wouldn't put 2 wars solely on his shoulders, considering that whole situation was brewed from past administrations, to include his father, but would not say solely his.

In case you want to argue: Whose fault things are...








This post was edited by Ghot on Aug 5 2018 02:56pm

IMO a high deficit is worse than a high debt in the long term since a high debt can be paid down by essentially doing nothing and allowing inflation and growth to take over.

Still, if you want the debt to go down the first step is to get the deficit down, so no matter what the deficit is what takes priority.

Unfortunately neither party is serious about tackling the issue. They try to look serious by saying "Oh look, if we cut everything our opponents want and nothing we want, we could solve it!" but it doesn't take a genius to figure out why that's disingenuous.

It really does work how Skinned said though, Republicans increase the deficit and then rail on Democrats for spending who then have to reverse course. Democrats tend to run a high deficit at the beginning, because they're taking over for Republicans high deficit at the end. This is seriously Republican strategy that has been leaked multiple times now. Government spending is great for the economy, which Republicans use when they are in office, and then rail against Democrats for using it so they can't get the benefit and have to cut to resolve the giant spending hole they created.

This post was edited by Thor123422 on Aug 5 2018 02:38pm